Monday January 16, 2017

Every American who looks at the CIA objectively or in a balanced way and judges it by any number of criteria, such as moral, legal and pragmatic, should reach the conclusion that the CIA should be abolished. JFK wanted to break it into a million pieces. Trump is right to dismiss its intelligence reports about DNC hacking. The CIA war on Trump shows us immediately that the CIA is a rogue organization within the U.S. government and a severe threat to America.

The CIA is an internal threat to the rule of law and to the government that it supposedly serves. Senator Schumer acknowledges the CIA’s unbridled power, its subversive power, its power to undermine even a president, especially one that wishes to control or alter the organization, when he says

“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. For a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

Schumer is saying that the CIA is so powerful that a president should not attempt to control it or else! The CIA is so powerful that elections do not matter when it comes to the CIA. The CIA stands alone. The Constitution that empowers the president as the Executive, the boss of government operations, does not matter. Basic American institutions and laws must bow before the threats that the CIA possesses. This is the assessment of a Senator beginning his 4th term and who is the highest ranking Democrat in the Senate in his post as minority leader.read on...

Protesters blocked efforts to have Yiannopoulos and controversial pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli speak on campus. Screaming “shut it down,” the protesters threatened the safety of organizers and attendees, according to the sponsors who finally cancelled the event.

Sunday January 15, 2017

This week, Congress passed a budget calling for increasing federal spending and adding $1.7 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years. Most so-called “fiscal conservatives" voted for this big-spending budget because it allows Congress to repeal some parts of Obamacare via “reconciliation." As important as it is to repeal Obamacare, it does not justify increasing spending and debt.

It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the Obamacare repeal would be used to justify increasing spending. Despite sequestration’s minor (and largely phony) spending cuts, federal spending has increased every year since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives. Some will attribute this to the fact that the Republican House had to negotiate with a big-spending Democratic president — even though federal spending actually increased by a greater percentage the last time Republicans controlled the White House and Congress than it did under President Obama.read on...

Saturday January 14, 2017

It did not take long before we knew there was no hope of change from President Obama. But at least he went into his inauguration with an unprecedented number of Americans on the Mall showing their support for the President of Change. Hope was abundant.

But with Trump, we are already losing faith, if not yet with him, at least with his choice of those who comprise his government even before Trump is inaugurated.

Trump’s choice for Secretary of State not only sounds like the neoconservatives in declaring Russia to be a threat to the United States and all of Europe, but also sounds like Hillary Clinton in declaring the South China Sea to be an area of US dominance. One would think that the chaiman of Exxon was not an idiot, but I am no longer sure. In his confirmation hearing, Rex Tillerson said that China’s access to its own South China Sea is “not going to be allowed.”

Here is Tillerson’s statement: “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands also not going to be allowed.”

I mean, really, what is Tillerson going to do about it except get the world blown up. China’s response was as pointed as a response can be:

Tillerson “should not be misled into thinking that Beijing will be fearful of threats. If Trump’s diplomatic team shapes future Sino-US ties as it is doing now, the two sides had better prepare for a military clash. Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power stategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories.”read on...

Friday January 13, 2017

The strange UK "former" spy-produced report on information the Russians may have to compromise President-elect Donald Trump has been widely denounced and the website that released it in its entirety, BuzzFeed, criticized for irresponsibility. However, Buzzfeed has actually done us a service by letting us look at the cockamamie report in its entirety rather than filtered through biased media sources. So says RPI Director Daniel McAdams in this RT panel discussion...read on...

Friday January 13, 2017

President Barack Obama's administration ending its eight-year rule by expanding the sharing of intercepted communications and data between federal agencies may feel a little bit like a final giant middle finger to the many critics of the massive, secretive surveillance state.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch just signed off on changes that will increase the ability of the National Security Agency (NSA) to share some raw intercepted data with other agencies before the process of filtering out private information from people unconnected to actual targets. The snooping itself is not changing, but more people will have access earlier in the process.

Specifically this is surveillance authorized by Executive Order 12333, the provisions that outline the conduct of intelligence agencies. These are rules separate from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the PATRIOT Act, and the new USA Freedom Act. The 12333 rules are specifically intended to oversee surveillance of foreign targets and foreign countries. It has very little oversight outside of the executive branch.read on...

Thursday January 12, 2017

Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich sent a letter this week to President Barack Obama requesting that Obama “grant the application for clemency submitted by Chelsea Manning and commute her sentence to time served.” The result of Obama taking this action would be the whistleblower’s prompt release from prison.

Noting that Manning “has already spent more time in prison than anyone previously convicted for providing information to the media,” the two former US House Members who have both run for president in their respective parties’ primaries, declare their belief that Manning “received a sentence that was excessively punitive and intended to send a chilling message to future potential whistleblowers acting in the public interest.”read on...

Thursday January 12, 2017

Watching the Senate hearing for President-elect Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, it seemed arch-neocon Bill Kristol might have been hiding somewhere feeding the former Exxon CEO his lines. He's going to stop China from accessing islands it has constructed in the South China Sea? He endorses the neocon line about Russian "aggression" against Ukraine and Crimea? If America doesn't "lead" the rest of the world, there will only be chaos and confusion? He wants to give Saudi Arabia a "pass" on its dismal human rights record? Let's hope Tillerson is just telling the likes of Marco Rubio (R-FL) what he wants to hear, but should we bet on it? Tune in to today's Liberty Report...read on...

Thursday January 12, 2017

"American soldiers rolled into Poland on Thursday, fulfilling a dream Poles have had since the fall of communism in 1989 to have US troops on their soil as a deterrent against Russia."

That's how the AP begins its report on the first deployment of US soldiers into the central European country, previewed here earlier in the week as "One Of Largest Deployments Since The Cold War", even as Russia warned that the move represented a threat to its national security, and the Kremlin said "Russia regarded the move as an aggressive step along its borders."

NATO, however, has ignored Russian concerns and threats of retaliation and as a result soldiers in camouflage with tanks and other vehicles crossed into southwestern Poland on Thursday morning from Germany and headed for Zagan, where they will be based.

While in the past the US and other Western nations have carried out exercises on NATO's eastern flank, this deployment, which includes around 3,500 US troops and 2,800 tanks, trucks and other military equipment, marks the first-ever continuous deployment to the region by a NATO ally.It also represents a commitment by outgoing President Obama to "protect" a region that became deeply nervous over Russia's response to the CIA-orchestrated presidential coup in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, and the resulting proxy war in east Ukraine.read on...

So, Schumer knows that there are six ways from Sunday for the intelligence community to get back at Trump but then, a few seconds later, can’t enumerate even one of those ways? That makes no sense, unless he was a bit scared to go into the details for fear that one of those “six ways from Sunday” might be employed against him.read on...